Rock and Roll; Interview with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller [Part 2 of 7]

It's so. Funny Jerry. Back of the table. Great Scott. Hey Robert it's all yours. I moved to L.A. and 1049 with my parents I was 16 and I went to high school for one semester here at Belmont High School which was largely Mexican-American and I joined a band the vastus Brothers Band and we played different gigs. A lot of jazz but also some Latino music. And then I graduated high school and went to Los Angeles City College and I was playing some gigs on occasion you know. Not too many. I wasn't really that good. I love jazz but I wasn't you know I wasn't good enough for my own taste. And about that time I decided since I love music that I would get involved and

study and I began to study privately with the composer orchestrator to study composition. And that's about the same time that I met Jerry. So you're writing these blues lyrics and you're when you got together it was with the idea of wining and not performing or there was not a question about performing. I you know I never never dreamed of performing. I was writing essentially primarily for blues singers black blues singers and I wasn't really interested in anything else. I wasn't interested in pop music I wasn't interested in country music. I wasn't interested in any jazz even in jazz vocal jazz. I enjoyed it. I like to listen to it you know for my own pleasure. But I was not interested in writing it I was only interested in the language and the humor and the pain

whatever of the blues. We felt for us to perform would be totally inauthentic because we were black. However for some reason we forgave ourselves when it came to writing. So there was never any question of performing. No. It was also tradition I mean pretty much I mean except there were a few exceptions like Johnny Mercer sang you know a few people sang once in a while but they by and large the tradition of songwriting was the songwriter wrote the songs and it was a behind the scenes kind of character. You know George George M. Cohan for instance was a great performer. You know I know about this but mainly the songwriter was mainly a behind the scenes guy except oddly enough in the blues because most of the blues performers wrote their own material. And

many of them I guess to some extent material was accepted because a lot of these performers who did write were not as good as some of the other ones. And they wrote the same song pretty much over and over. Well when you first started placing the songs during the song recorded what kind of an experience was that. Did you find it satisfying or frustrating or what deeply frustrating. Because for the first the first sessions the first meetings were sent out by last year so with modern records and who who which was owned by them the Barry brothers and the merry brothers were completely a musical. I mean they just they had a business they could have been in the junk business no matter you know and they had this record company and they were affable guys easy to get

along with but they they really didn't know much about music and didn't care much about it either. And we were we had some meetings with some artists we met with the Robins you know and it was it was in the very beginning it was hard to get things straight. You know it was hard to get things down and it was hard to get things right and we struggled with that for a long time and in a funny way we started to produce really in self-defense because a lot of the songs that we had written Firstly the first songs we wrote were lousy and you know so it didn't matter how well they were produced they just came out badly. Later on we started writing some good songs and they were not produced adequately or properly or they were misinterpreted. You know you get a swing band arrangement on a blues right by Hollywood arranger instead of the right kind of stuff that you get out of someone like Bumps Blackwell or or Maxwell Davis. Right.

So you know as we went along we learned the different ways the different styles and so forth and we started producing also. The key to what success we had was in rehearsal because we used to rehearse our groups that we work with the robbers the coasters and so on for weeks on end before a session Traditionally these people came together in the studio and learn the song on the day and performed it. And there were some wonderful bands they could like Johnny Otis as they could do have arrangements right from the get go and they'd come off sounding very professional but there hadn't been any time for a real exploration and in rehearsal. Did you catch the city or converse. Kansas City came first. Wait a minute they were about the same time actually with the release dates really different but they were both cut in 51 from both cut and 52 actually yeah.

I'm trying to remember when Kansas City came out at the end of fifty two big mama's record was recorded in August of 52 but it didn't come out till 53 February March. Let's let's address each of those women who were here back here at the city did you did you feel anything at the time that that that was sort of a breakthrough for you in terms of the craft of songwriting because I know you know we talked about this before the idea that this was a blues with a melody hook almost like a pop song. You can just say that or like you say Pardon my conservative estimate. Originally Can I was seeing the words to Kansas City to a conventional blues shout pattern. You know I mean just now I'm going Kansas City Kansas City Yeah

something like that. Right. And I gave it to Mike and I said I think this way ought to go and he said Yeah he said. I started playing on piano study pointed to this and he put it that then he put it to a shuffle and I said well and he started to play you know a little bit of go and can you send a player to and I said no I know I know what that I said I want you know and I went back to the straight blues and he said yeah you know because Mike is very polite you know. And he kept playing around the idea. And I finally said You know I really don't want that melody. I don't want a melody I want to sound like a traditional blues. I don't want to sound like some you know smart ass and a songwriter is tempering it with a melody and he said who's running the music. You know me and I was like stand off for a minute and I looked at him he looked at me. I don't rightly cheese. You want the boys crazy and I said I said You rock music.

Yes it was good he said it's going to go like this. That's sort of the way it went. Only the song came out and an armed man from federal record Ralph Bass said you know what I love the song. It's great but you know it's not sexy enough. Now he's trying to say his hip case is really hip. Release the record. He just changed the title on the label to Casey. It took seven years before somebody else recall remember the song and record it under its obvious title. Now up here I've got a couple minutes left. OK. Let's can we get this story on hound dog. And since this is like the story of when this will be in the show you know we sort of you know we're going to go to go to we're hearing it you know it's sort of more

of maybe this case instead of just this one. They go I suggested holding off on a neighbor saw you talk about it or what. Oh all right well like there's less to still gave us a call and said he has set up an appointment for us to go down to listen to a rehearsal one afternoon of Johnny Otis is Grosh where he rehearsed his band and listen to his singers he had a number of different singers down there had known Williams and Little Esther and Big Mama Thornton and a group with the Three Tuns a joint. I don't think yeah that was I think came a little later I think you know and we went there and you know Lester told Johnny that we were you know young guys who were comers and we wrote the blues well down in that sort of house we worked with little Lester. Oh well I forgot that. I know. So we went down we went down to listen to his people and Big

Mama got up and sang a song. And she's just not just we thought she was great. And I said I turning my Kinnison on. That's you know here this is it. Let's go home right. And we left and went to an on the way to Mike's house. I had gotten maybe 50 60 percent already of the lyric because I was looking for. Yeah. Great great stuff. I mean what concert. We got the numbers and we are settled. It's all yours. Everybody you know OK was I remember that he was saying when I thought about it with myself on an on the way to Mike's house we ran into brown rabbit and Rabbit said Where you going. And I said we'll I might sell some of the right round. Listen listen I am That's right I know why that tape was all right

here. You're on your way over to work because you didn't get with Big Momma. Why did she Press you said she impressed us so. So maybe I'll try to cut it short. I'm going to tell you. Well I mean little Lester I think saying a number and Ray Ray Williams They're both really good. And Big Mama got up and she just blew everybody away. She was just such a great blues singer and she was so nasty. She was she was really evil. I loved her. I thought she was great. She held these razor scars all over her face. There's somebody down there with us somewhere listening said that she was a lady and I don't know what that was. And I found out maybe five or six or seven years later that that was a very big female who was in a lot of trouble.

And she acted that way. But actually she wasn't that way. It was a big front. Like most players you know. She just sang her ass off you know and impressed us very much and we looked at each other and decided to take off immediately and we jumped in Mike's car and headed for his house. And I'd say about maybe halfway to his house. I had already gotten about 50 percent of the lyrics to the song and we landed and Mike went to the piano and I started yelling You ain't nothing but a hound and it all came together in about eight or 10 minutes and we got back in the car and went back to the garage and we laid the song on Johnny Otis and he told us to perform it for Big Mama which we did. And I started I think maybe I got through about four more hours and she gave me

that you know that piece of paper you know give me that. And she sort of grabbed the paper out of my hand. It was not written on a brown paper bag. Mind you it was written with these spiral notebook paper. And she started to sing it and actually she started to cry on it and I said it don't go that way. And all of a sudden there was a hush in this crash. The entire band I think you're 11 or 12 guys on the stand and they usually jerking around you know in high jinks and locker room stuff you know it became quiet as a mouse. And she you know like that you know like that he said. Did I tell you how to go go like this. I had he said Why boy don't you tell me how to sing the blues. So I looked at my killer to me and Johnny Otis came to I said wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute and call him just wait a minute he said well may.

She looked up and I'm sure. Yes sir. She was very polite when she's doing business and she wasn't doing business with me. Yes or said they were going to stop that stuff you know. We'll take care of business right. That's right. So now you know that song she handed to me he said now sing the song the way I suppose to be for Big Mama. All right I'll get my microwave split. He didn't want to have anything what if any of this. You know he's looking at the back door. I said Mike played piano and he what he did one of these you know. Finally he went over to the piano and I sang the song Mike played solo and the band went nuts. They loved it. They thought it was funny. These two white kids in here sing the blues the most must be crazy what are they doing you know. And Big Mama finally broke into a smile. I came down she made up

with me I made up with her she took the song and she started singing it. Johnny got on the drums and during the rehearsal and it sounded great. It was just it was dynamite. Yeah. PETE LEWIS on the star of The People's list of genius. Was he saying it how I see you. That that's how he sings. That's how I usually talk thing especially quiet today because I said don't do that. Don't do that on a camera and don't do that on a microphone you want to scare the people out of the studio. Can you just like imitate somebody. Some managers who control here well you know. OK. I know.

What I think we're ready to talk about. So lucky number. All right. And why a technological cloth running in the other clothes. Well the matter is not your blood anything prior to drive it here drive so this is a reason to get rowdy. So I wonder if you might give us a little background on this idea. All of this on the side of the plate would you know what's the background to this. What we hear which is a very fully formed idea in the background is radio and how I was in politically anyway and I was sort of

influenced by you know programs like I love the mystery and the shadow and the NRA and you're just the right answer with your answer. Oh yes OK if you know but you know actually mentioning them rather than leaving it to the intervention of just just to keep watch the form. I certainly can. Well riot in cell block number nine was influenced primarily in Jerry's work but also in mind in terms of the radio programs that we listen to as kids and the characters speaking radio. Let's face it was much more interesting than television because you could imagine all these things. And so using the kind of

radio technique that non-visual dialogue because of the way in which these songs evolved and this was probably the first one in which the narration was done in that style. And also of course we enjoyed putting in sound of acts which were like things from what was the program gangbuster gangbusters and stuff like that with the sirens of machine guns and so on and so forth. You could sort of sum it up in a way I think sort of like yes it may be a little bit more complicated but I think that it's enough. The form musically when the blues because will be made by you know Little Walter. Those blues breaks. That was the form and that was the sound. The content was something that we made up and was very much influenced by early radio but filtered through a

blues idiom in terms of language in terms of vocabulary and terms of dialect. What sort of different problems in terms of preparing the sauce to be recorded. Did you know working with this kind of material seems like it would almost be a truly different ballgame I was rehearsing like a way for a play to some degree maybe but you know there there there were precursors there were other groups doing things before we did the clover calling us to do things where the base of the the end line of the bridge or something like that. And we love the word and the Dominoes and Jimmy Ricks and the raven we were influenced by all these groups and really and we try I guess we sort out the synthesised. I know a lot of these influences with the coasters. Call her you know by this time.

Just Play Ball sport. Wonder if you can tell us what. What I'm glad I'm here to get into it. Having your own record label and what was on it cracked hear enough about it to make Atlantico very attractive. Well Marc records was a label that we started with who was really our our mentor and advisor. And the reason that we started that we would be unencumbered when it came to the creator of production of the records we could. Thank you from from beginning to end including the mastering and all the editing and so on and so forth which is really what we want to do to protect the notion of the integrity of the idea of each song.

And the reason that ultimately Atlantic seemed so attractive was twofold Number one we loved the Atlantic Records. We have minded many of the artists the Clovers rules and so on and so forth. LaVerne Baker Joe Turner Joe Turner Ray Charles but also because we were under finance then we couldn't we couldn't as Jerry says often we couldn't cross the Rockies so we would we have a big smash in L.A. knowing even a hundred thousand records singles and nothing on the other side of the country. Zero. So that seemed to be a good idea which they suggested to us they said listen make the record low pay or because we know how to sell a new line. And that was how the blues. Was. Pleased. Now if you got a good rap. We have the protest letters you should

have just one but they're all getting a green light so I will bring my OK.